Numbers 26:29, commentary and pictures

Numbers 26:29 belongs to the second numbering of Israel in Numbers 26, taken in the plains of Moab at the close of the forty years of wandering just before entering Canaan, nearly thirty-eight years after the first numbering in Numbers 1 at Sinai soon after leaving Egypt, taken by Moses at the Lord's command. It is part of the numbering of Israel at the end of the forty years and of the census taken near the end of the wandering, the second of Israel's two censuses held thirty-eight years after the census at Sinai. Unlike David's unauthorized census, this census Moses took at the Lord's command brought no trouble. The verse records the Machirite and Gileadite families among the descendants of Manasseh counted in that census. It shows that Gilead was the grandson of Manasseh, and that Manasseh was the elder son of Joseph and Ephraim was the younger son.

The verse is to be compared with the first numbering in Numbers 1 to show differences among the tribes and how some fell off and others increased. That comparison, made forty years later and covering nearly thirty-eight years, reveals which tribes gained or lost in size. In that second census Manasseh numbered 52,700 adult males, up 20,500 from 32,200, an increase of almost two-thirds and the largest growth of any tribe, while the whole nation numbered 601,730 compared with 603,550 before. The first numbering counted the men of war expecting to enter the promised land, but all of them except Caleb and Joshua died in the wilderness because of wickedness, sin, and open rebellion against God. So the second numbering proves that God's threatened judgments are fulfilled and that not one rebellious man remained alive, showing that sin in the heart brings certain ruin.

The verse instructs the people upon whom the ends of the world are come, whose hopes of entering the kingdom of God and tokens of God's favor are no greater than Israel's were, not to carry sin lest they come short of the promise as Israel did.